


Upon noticing the mountain

by Quillori



Category: Original Work, Pepsi Nex Zero "Momotaro" Commercials
Genre: Gen, Oni's culture (Pepsi Nex Zero "Momotaro" Commercials), Pheasant's Kingdom (Pepsi Nex Zero "Momotaro" Commercials), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 11:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10513044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori
Summary: The stories we tell - a young shaman comes of age in the Bird Kingdom





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clocketpatch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/gifts).



> The commercials themselves:
> 
> [Episode 0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNX-YmS9g7w)   
>  [Episode 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAqpT98f6rw)   
>  [Episode 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeY_R1geOK4)   
>  [Episode 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nQZdcdn71Q)   
>  [Episode 4](https://vimeo.com/178846937)

> My mother used to sing to me, to us. She sang about the thieving crow, the handsome prince, about voyages and adventures, about clever heroes who could master any art, forge any weapon. There was one about a prince whose love was stolen away by monsters: he searched forever, steadfast, and even now he wanders the earth, determined. It is his shadow that falls upon the moon as he passes to and fro in his endless search. After that I liked the darkest nights best, when his shadow fell most across the moon, for it seemed to me that meant he was near, and I shared the darkness with him. But I was sorry he had never found his love again.

Strangely, of all the senses it is taste that is the most immediate, the most tethered to the here and now. A steamed bun, the doughy texture, the heat bursting into your mouth as you bite it, the taste of herbs and lamb; skewers of meat, singed and smokey from the fire, the fat melting on your tongue; sour tea; little crumbly honey cakes on feast days … even in memory, I can never quite recreate them, and other tastes come to me only faint and uncertain: unfamiliar spices, a hint of rock and smoke, raw meat still warm and bloody, but all fleeting, all insubstantial. Sometimes I only know where I am, _if_ I am, when I try to eat a meal.

> My mother's voice, rhythmic and gentle, telling stories as she worked, as she soothed me to sleep: once upon a time there were two brothers, a good brother and a bad brother, reflections of each other. The good brother was very beautiful: he wore lovely feathered ornaments – yes, just like the ones we make, and whenever you are binding one, you must try very hard to make it good enough to be worthy of him – and everyone loved him who saw him. The other brother dressed all in black, and that is why we never use black feathers, because all black things belong to him and are unlucky. The good brother danced at every festival, bringing good fortune, but the bad brother brooded at home and was hated by everyone, until they succeeded in driving him away, and only the good brother remained. Then everyone was very happy, and there was a big celebration, and that is why we hold a festival every year, with a big bonfire and dancing, to remember when bad luck was driven out and only good luck remained. And everyone wears new clothes for the festival, and new ornaments, which is why we must work very hard now making them, and there is no time for you to sit staring off into space, not doing your share. Little boys who sit in a corner brooding get blacker and blacker, and everyone starts to avoid them, until one day the bad brother comes back and claims them. But good children get pretty things to wear and are allowed to dance with their friends.

I was already late – I could hear the bells ringing out from the temple, hundreds of individual notes, like the birds at dawn, like the clash of jewellery at a dance. If I stopped and listened, I could sink into it, see the silver bangles on the dancer's wrist, on his ankle, feel the cool air of dawn, the dew damp against my bare feet, the birds taking wing overhead. Or smashing crockery, a dish thrown at a wall, breaking into a hundred little pieces. Or the rain spattering against bare rock - a waterfall - water dripping from a bucket back into the well - children's laughter. Pay too much attention, and you could hear _everything_ , the entire world contained in the sound of bells alone.

I'd come to a stop without meaning to, leaning against a wall and staring at a world no one else around me could see, the familiar waves of disorientation taking the strength from my legs. The wall was solid, sun-warmed stone, rough against my bare arm, and I could feel where the men had hewn it away from the mountain, their picks ringing like temple bells … here and now, I must focus on here and now, the separate, discrete bit of existence that is me, at this moment ... this street, these passers-by, my embarrassment and anger at being late again, the beating of my own heart, not how these things merge and meld into the world at large.

> There was a man, a beggar, old and white haired and ragged. He slept on the streets near the market, keeping himself warm in winter by lying down with the dogs. He was as mangy and flea-ridden as they were. A madman, begging because he could not work, could not even speak but only growl deep in his throat, frightening. He saw things no one else saw, collected round him talismans that meant nothing to anyone else, broken scraps of metal, old discarded bones, dirty rags. Sometimes he would try to speak to me, as though he could speak, as though I should be able to understand him, as though he could see me clearly (although he never looked anyone else in the eye). As though he knew I could see him, when everyone else saw only the dogs.

I was fourteen when I started going to the temple. I'd delivered a fine headdress (my sister made it, binding the feathers in place with nimble fingers, giving style and grace to the rough felt form I'd shaped), and returned home without the money. Well, there are street thieves everywhere there are both people and streets, even in a peaceful, well-run town like ours, so it was a loss but not a surprise. But the tale I told, quite unshakably, and as though it were the most normal thing in the world, was not that I'd met a pick-pocket or a purse-snatcher, but that my way home, a way that ran through the centre of town, had somehow also run through the thick forest, and a band of monkeys had assailed me. I even said perhaps if I went back I'd find the money – they could have no use for it, except as a toy, and had probably dropped it by now. I couldn't understand why my mother stared at me so. I hadn't thought not to tell her the truth, because I was so certain this time it was real.

> Everyone flies in their dreams. Of course. Are we not the people of the birds? Do we not live in the mountains, among the clouds, so high we might as well be flying even when we walk our narrow streets? Are our dreams not the enduring sign of an ancient compact? But which is the dream – these streets, with their beggars and their traders, or those other streets that rang with screams, red with blood and fire, or the streets that do not exist at all, but are pathways in the air, the route that birds take from summer to winter and back again? Sometimes I see one, sometimes another, and it is in the most distant, the strangest visions that I may work miracles, bring back wandering souls or heal the sick. Are those the real, the truest level, or is my talent to fly into the realm dreams and make them real?

Was it better before or worse? At least now I had more practice in coming back to myself, and I knew what was happening and why, but at the same time the daily lessons, perhaps even my constant attendance at the temple, were making the attacks more overwhelming, less reasonable. Where once I drifted away over dull, repetitive tasks, hardly aware I was doing more than daydreaming, now I was assailed on the street or in the middle of a meal, and often with worse than a few random snatches of vision.

> Once upon a time there were two kings, who ruled the kingdom equally, because they were brothers, sacred twins, and neither could bear to take precedence over the other. They shared all things fairly, each doing the tasks he was best suited for, without jealously or resentment. They were good kings, and the kingdom was peaceful and safe, so we say their reign was a golden age. But one day they began to quarrel: one said the other was more popular, and had more enjoyable tasks to do. After that things did not go well, and the quarrelsome brother became a traitor who helped our wicked neighbours to invade us, and after we drove them out, we burned him alive on a big bonfire.

That was why I was late. The way from my home to the temple was short, and naturally I could not be excused from my tasks earlier than was necessary – it was a precarious enough existence as it was, without me shirking my share of the work – but most days I couldn't bring myself to take the direct way, because it bordered the edge of the meat market, and there were always, always stray dogs. Perfectly harmless strays, you understand, who did no worse than beg for scraps, sleeping in mangy piles by the side of the road, and not disturbing anyone. No one but me, because somehow my childish fear of dogs welled up until they became monstrous, not dogs but wolves, slavering and deadly, and wild beyond all human control. How could I admit it to anyone, that I took the long way every day because I could not bear to pass a dog, because a beggar once spoke to me, because a silly fancy I'd had as a child now seemed more real to me than the evidence of my own eyes?

> It is my favourite love story. You can hear it in any tavern, on any street-corner, wherever there is a storyteller, a ballad singer, he will know it; it is the most popular of the shadow-puppet plays. Once upon a time there were two lovers, who were never parted from each other. They were the most handsome of men, and one of them was a wise man, who created marvels, as well as a great warrior; the other was learned in the ways of the gods, who brought blessings upon all who asked for them. But where there are blessings there are also curses, and he brought so much good to all who petitioned him that the gods grew resentful and the cursed his lover with every sorrow, every fear, every hatred that he had lifted from the hearts of others. The wise man became a monster, wandering the world like beast, unable to recognise anyone, and attacking all who came near him. But his lover sought him out wherever he fled, following him faithfully whatever the hardship, whatever the risk, determined to save him. But the more good magic he did, the more his lover suffered, until he realised there was no way to lift the curse but to sacrifice himself. And such was the depth of his love he gladly gave up his own life to rescue him, and every year on the anniversary of his death, we remember him, and sacrifice he made.

Looking back, she must have taken me to be healed, thinking I was ill or cursed, but the priest knew at once what I was, and made the necessary arrangements: a partial commitment to the temple, to be confirmed when I was of age; lessons, not only in how to control my talent and bend it a useful purpose, but in the chants and rites the full novitiates learned; a small stipend, really hardly more than symbolic, to be paid to my mother in recognition she was now raising me for the temple and not for our family. I still don't know if she was more relieved to hand me over to someone else, or sad it was not my sister who had been blessed. And indeed the gods have strange taste, for my sister has a laugh as sweet as chiming bells, and I would be the first to say she should be chosen over me for any blessing: joy should go to the joyous, and love should go to those with a loving heart. But of course, perhaps it is a burden and not a blessing, whatever the priests say. Did not our first and most famous shaman burn?

> There is another version of the story, which you will never hear in the streets, nor see the puppeteer play out. It is still a love story, I think, but not a story about lovers. It is sung only on the most holy days, prefacing the most important prayers. The Bringer of Blessings loves not a man but his people, and desires to make a fitting sacrifice to ensure their safety, their prosperity and happiness. A sacrifice to bring down blessings beyond number. What else can he sacrifice but that which is dearest to him, the brother who is his other half? In this version it is the monster who dies, a willing monster who gives up his humanity and then his life so that his brother may do his duty, the same duty that is required of every shaman, to protect the people of this kingdom.

My teacher's voice, quiet in the bare little room, the sounds of the busy street outside distant and blurred, almost like the hum of summer cicadas, only his voice distinct, meaningful:

> Remember, always remember, if you will do nothing but good, you yourself must pay for the good you bring, rather than letting the price be paid by others. If you try to have only blessings, if you hand out good things without thought, the debt will mount up and up, and someone must always pay in the end. It as though you ran a shop, and gave away all the goods without charging anything: either you will lose everything yourself, or you must begin to steal. It is the easy way, the popular way, to do only what people ask of you, only the things that make them immediately happy, but there must be balance, you must do the unpopular things too, or you will be destroyed. Before there can be the harvest, someone must have ploughed the fields. Before there can be a dance, someone must have made the costumes, built up the fire, stretched the hides taut upon the drums.

Another teacher's voice, sometime in the future, or perhaps it was only a dream. Sometimes I still can't tell. But the room was much the same, and the muted sounds of the street outside:

> ...it is probably that they were not historical figures: the modern consensus is that they are archetypes, meant to represent day and night, perhaps, or summer and winter. Obviously, the pheasant represents fertility, its dance linked to courtship and offspring. The crow is a widespread symbol of death, a clever scavenger. But it is not with these we are concerned today: no, today we will turn our attention from our own history to that of another, much less well studied, and much stranger, tribe.
> 
> Strictly, 'oni' means 'the ones who have history’….

Mostly I try not to go too far. I remember the taste meat, of honey, and I remember I cannot do my duty if I wander away and become lost. I'm told that is a thing that happens, that sometimes I will come across the shades of shamans before me (or perhaps shamans who will come after me), no longer able to find their way home, or to remember what home is. But sometimes I wonder if they left (will leave) deliberately, because they choose a new home for themselves, or because they learn too much to see things the way they were taught.

> Strictly, 'oni' means 'the ones who have history' that is to say people, rational creatures with language and memory. It is, of course, what they call themselves. Much the same can be said of other folk groups, whose word for themselves is often just a general word for those with language, or villages, or religion, or whatever else they think is the most important identifying feature of real people, as opposed to animals or gods.
> 
> It is important, however, to understand what the oni mean by history. We think of history as the doing of kings and heroes: grand battles, political alliances; the drama of some exceptional individual. Sometimes, too, we think of causes, of how things came to be the way they are: how political structures evolved, where this smithing technique first came into use, when that quarter of town was laid out. But for the oni, history is a steady flow in which all participants are of equal value and interest: it is not so much about who stood out in some way, or who achieved something unusual (and indeed the oni have little by way of material technology, and a very simple tribal structure that has remained largely unchanged for a very long while), but rather about how each individual fits into the tribe, and plays a part in the essentially unchanging nature of life. To the oni, history is not a record of change, but a memory of those who have done the same thing in the same way before you.
> 
> The historical records of the oni are all poetry – perhaps unsurprisingly in a culture without writing, which must rely on the mnemonic benefits of rhyme and rhythm: more surprisingly, all the poetry is historical records: where we have love songs, and patriotic songs, and dancing songs, and simple work songs and counting out songs, and songs in praise of nature, and complicated, competitive flyting songs, they have nothing at all but what they call history.
> 
> These historical poems are very long, in part because the genealogy of each participant must be given, which can stretch for many lines: so-and-so the child of so-and-so, grand-child of, great-grandchild of, until the lines of ancestry merge. And after each name (and the names themselves are long, a sort of miniature genealogy in themselves), there is a brief record of deeds, not the sort we might record ourselves, not that so-and-so fought in a battle, or rose to great power or wealth; not even the smaller triumphs of the common man, as a farmer might recount his own father had been attacked by wolves while hunting for a lost sheep, but drove them off and survived; or stories about love, which elevates whatever it touches, so that the love story of a beggar-girl and a trader's son stands equal with the loves of kings: no, it as though we wrote exclusively of a man who cleared a field ready for ploughing, then ploughed it and sowed it and reaped, and then again the next year ploughed it, and the year after, and so forth, and out of this we made a great drama: the heroic effort of prising up rocks from the field, maneuvering the weight of the plough, tearing up thorny bushes that scratch and cut the hands, and all to do again the following year. And also all exactly the same as our neighbour did, and his forefathers before him, and ours before us, each to be recounted at length, as though it were the most fascinating of subjects. But to the oni it is fascinating, and they have no greater pleasure than considering how they fit together into the timeless structure of their people, who are to them the only true people.
> 
> But not is not quite true after all that there is nothing but this repetitive history. Although it is not well known, there is another type of story sometimes told, but only to young children, or at sacred events, such that it is hard for a foreign chronicler to come by examples. These stories are said to be very old, and are of a type found elsewhere: they deal not with the internal history of the oni, but with the relation between the oni and the world at large, with how the oni came to be, and what the dividing line is between the world of people and the world of things. For example, it is said that it is possible, and sometimes in the very distant past it happened, that an inanimate object, or an animal, or a minor god, desired to become real, to become oni, and somehow by the force of that desire, transformed itself. How a rock or a flame could desire anything is not explained, but these are clearly important stories, though they have been little studied, for they are the foundation of myth of that culture, explaining how the oni came to exist, and why they have the qualities they do.

I think all mothers everywhere sing to their children, but the further I go, the less I can tell the man from the wolf, the crow from the pheasant, the oni from the human. Each is justified in their own eyes, both the shepherd who kills the wolf and the wolf who kills the man. This is not the conclusion I wanted to reach.

> For example, it is said that there was once a rock that became oni, one of the very first, an ancestor to all modern oni, and the strength and enduring nature the oni believe they possess is because they are in part descended from this rock. Likewise they tell how another ancestor, a minor fire spirit, tired of burning uncontrollably and then dying to unremembered ash, or being trammelled and put to work, unable to express itself freely, longed to be part of history. Likewise this animal and that, always the very king of its type, after many adventures, amusing in the version told for children, mystical in that for adults, succeeds in transforming itself.
> 
> These stories would surely repay greater study, for there are hints that they go beyond foundation myths and deal also with the mystery of death: after all, when one of the oni dies, they remain part of the history of the tribe, but their body becomes inanimate, explicitly not oni, making the same transformation in reverse. And in many of these stories, particularly ones with animal protagonists, after the wolf, or the badger, or the bird becomes oni, it not only brings blessings to its new tribe, offering up the strength or the cunning or the skill it had as a representative of its type, but it brings danger too, for its former compatriots resent it for sharing their secrets, or for its successful transformation, and often the story ends with the transformed animal killed by others of its former type. Only in the stories told of the most far-off times, with stones and mountains and fire, is the transformation totally successful and long-lasting, with no subsequent price to be paid, or loss, or danger.

For myself, I think it is only that with time we forget whatever price it was. But how can I argue about the stories monsters tell themselves, with a teacher who does not even exist?

Our souls take wing at night, and fly away into the darkness, where there is no moon to guide our way. 

Do you know the very oldest story about the Pheasant King? No one tells it now, and it is almost forgotten. Once upon a time they said the crow stole fire from the gods, from the sun, and the pheasant made a great bonfire from his brother and his own heart, a magic bonfire whose light could be taken anywhere, into other worlds, into death itself: that is why he is pictured as a bird with a burning branch in his beak, with gaudy feathers that are like a flame themselves. There is a shadow across the moon, and the darkness is greater than I am, but the little spark of fire will never consent to be extinguished.

**Author's Note:**

> The pheasant cries  
> as if it just noticed  
> the mountain.
> 
>  
> 
> Kobayashi Issa, translated by Robert Hass


End file.
